Higher Education Quick Takes

Quick Takes

Four students at Case Western Reserve University were killed Monday night when the small plane one of them was flying crashed, Cleveland.com reported. A statement from the university said that three of the four students were members of the wrestling team.

South Korea is tightening the admissions requirements for Korean students who live outside the country, The Korea Herald reported. The country allows Koreans from abroad to apply without taking the entrance exam that is crucial to admission of most students. Now the country will specify the time one must live abroad to qualify. The change follows reports of students in Korea going abroad for brief periods to qualify for the text exemption.

In today's Academic Minute, Dana Burde, an assistant professor of international education at New York University, discusses her work to improve the way Afghan children are educated. Learn more about the Academic Minute here.

Students inspired by (or tired of) the "ice bucket challenge" for ALS research have taken to Twitter with the #PayMyTuition challenge, in which they are challenging various celebrities to help finance their higher education. There are lots of requests to the usual suspects -- President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, etc. Also there have been some notable responses. At Austin Peay State University, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, responded by noting that ROTC does in fact pay tuition. (Of course ROTC requires a much more serious commitment than dumping a bucket of ice on one's head or tweeting.) Blackboard responded with a contest inviting students to explain how they will use their education to make the world a better place. First place is a $15,000 scholarship.

Corinthian Colleges, the struggling for-profit chain that is selling or closing its 107 campuses, announced Monday in a corporate filing that the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) appeared willing to discuss a possible settlement. The CFPB has been investigating the company. Last week it sent a letter Corinthian alleging violations of the Dodd-Frank Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the company said.

The CFPB said it would require several conditions as part of a possible settlement, according to Corinthian. They would include ceasing the sale or transfer of private student loans, providing prospective students with more information about the company's financial problems, and providing the bureau with details about the possible sale of Corinthian's assets. The company reported that it had sold a portfolio of student loans for $19 million one day before receiving the letter from the feds.

Adjunct faculty members at the University of the District of Columbia voted 82 to 25 in favor of forming a union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, they announced Monday. Part-time faculty members there join adjuncts at four other Washington-area institutions to form unions affiliated with the SEIU, and the organization says it now represents 75 percent of adjuncts in the metro area. A university spokesman declined immediate comment.

OpenStax College, a nonprofit publisher that produces free textbooks, will expand its library with 10 new titles by 2017. The publisher, an initiative out of Rice University, currently has seven textbooks (and another four in the works) covering popular topics such as biology, economics and physics. The new titles will be funded by grants from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Rice alumni.

An external investigation has found no wrongdoing in Sussex County Community College's awarding of a contract even though three of its trustees had ties to the engineering firm that received the contract, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported. The three trustees, all of whom voted to award the contract to CP Engineers, had all been paid for various services by the firm. The law firm that investigated the arrangement said that it had been awarded in line with state contracting laws.

In today's Academic Minute, Steven Schandler, a senior professor of psychology Chapman University's Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, discusses the factors that influence ACOAs or adult children of alcoholics. Learn more about the Academic Minute here.

John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, died on Friday at the age of 93. The announcement was made by the Apollo Education Group, which grew out of the company Sperling founded in 1973.

The obituary noted Sperling's pride in taking on establishment higher education. “I was totally unprepared for the level of resistance and the passion of that resistance by professors and university administrators," he wrote in his autobiography, Against All Odds. Sperling retired as chair of the company's board in 2012.